moonslav59

It seems to hurt more when that top pick is top 15. Here's a look at our "top picks:" Theo '03: David Murphy (pretty solid pick at #17) '04: 2nd rd Pedroia at #65 WOW! '05: Jacoby Ellsbury (#23 comp pick for OCab) and Craig Hansen (#26 BUST) '06: Jason Place (#27 BUST) '07: 2nd rd Nick Hagadone (#55 and a rare pitcher with our first pick) '08: Casey Kelly (#30 a pitcher that was traded for AGon) '09: Raymond Fuentes (#28 BUST) '10 Kolbrin Vitek (#20 BUST) '11 Matt Barnes (Pitcher #26 comp for VMart) & Blake Swihart (#26 com for Beltre) Ben '12 Deven Marrero (#24), Brian Johnson (#31 Comp for Papelbon) & Pat Light (#37 also for Papelbon) '13: Trey Ball (#7 Biggest Bust and a pitcher) '14: Michael Chavis (#26) & Michael Kopech (#33 P traded for Sale) '15: Andrew Benintendi (#7) '16: Jay Groome (#12 HS pitcher - likely a bust) DD '17: Tanner Houck (#24 P looking pretty good) '18: Tristan Casas (#26) '19: 2nd rd Cameron Cannon (#43 BUST) Bloom '20: Nick Yorke (#17) '21: Marcelo Mayer (#4- the highest pick by the Sox) '22: Mikey Romero (#24) (Anthony picked 79th got a bigger signing bonus)

Well said. When I said "tied," I meant factoring in the higher risk pitchers bring to a draft.

Not Bloom. He doesn't do it.

He seems to have improved on our IFA signings, as well. He also added prospects Whitlock, Winck, Wong, EValdez, Abreu, Kelly, Gambrell and others in nondraft/IFA methods. To me, this was his number one priority- maybe co-number one with fixing the budget. I think he has done well in both areas, but his grade is incomplete, to me. Building up the 26 and 40 man roster foundation has been more difficult, especially with dwindling budgets for his first 3 seasons, and virtually no farm help until Bello & Duran, this year, so I find it hard to grade him on just W-L results. I think our foundation is much stronger than in 2019, but much of it is speculative, in nature. Farm: INC (Already seeing Whitlock, Wong & Wink is a good start.) Budget: INC (The Yoshida, Story and Devers signings are still pending) MLB Foundation (26 & 40 man rosters): C- maybe. (2020 does not count, to me. 2021 was a plus. 2022 was a minus. This year is INC.) I'm assuming the poster who keep talking about the legion of "Bloom Supporters" thinks I'm one, but I don't see it that way. To me, he appears to have done what he was told to do, and the major results are still pending. I'm not going to ding him for selecting HS players and delaying the farm's ML impact, until we see how well or poorly they do.

Just pick the player you think is best. Position should not be a factor, unless you think it is an exact tie. BTW, our young pitchers have been shining, of late, and the farm has some encouraging pitchers, too.

What makes it tougher is the fact that several SP'ers are supposed to return, perhaps Houck and Whitlock right after the AS break and Sale near the trade deadline. How good will they be? Houck & Whitlock have not been all that good, so far. Sale was really finding his groove and may not find it again. If we can get to 4 games over .500 (an 85 win pace) missing over 30 GS'd by our top 5 SP'ers (and I'm not counting Kluber or Pivetta as top 5,) maybe we can improve, greatly with their return plus Story, Schreiber and others. How can our current roster not improve by replacing these guys with these other guys: Scott> Houck Jacques> Whitlock Murphy> Schreiber Walter>Sale Trade Arroyo, Duvall or Kike > Story Alfaro> McGuire I'm not sure what most of Red Sox Nation thinks, but these 26 man roster looks pretty damn salid to me. We could even add a SP'er at the deadline and be better. SP: Bello, Paxton, Sale, Whitlock, Houck or player acquired by trade LR: Houck or player acquired by trade, Crawford, Pivetta, Winckowski SR: Jansen, Martin, Schreiber, Bernardino/Bleier/Joely/Walter/Murphy C: Wong & McGuire or Alfaro 1B: Casas (Turner) 2B: Kike, Arroyo/Chang SS: Story, Chang 3B: Devers (Turner) LF: Yoshida, Refsnyder CF: Duran, Duvall (if not traded) RF: Dugo (Duvall) DH: Turner (Yoshida) People laughed at this group back in March, and many still are, but I'm liking our outlook, right now and going forward into the next few years. (I realize my opinion might change in 2-3 weeks, but I'm staying hopeful.)

All those guys will hold a a special place in my heart.

Was this Dugo's scheduled day of rest? LOL!

Some mocks... Colt Enerson SS (HS) Emerson’s one of the younger players in the draft class and there are at least some scouts who think he’s one of the better pure hitters. I’m only hearing them with hitters, including college guys Shaw, Brock Wilken and Chase Davis; and high schoolers with Bryce Eldridge – who supposedly wants to go to a team that will also let him pitch – Houck and Mitchell as other possibilities. MLB.com has the same pick and adds, "Houck, Emerson, third baseman Aidan Miller or Peete would give the Red Sox a prep infielder in the Draft for the fourth straight year. Mitchell could be appealing as well. " Aidan Miller 3B (HS) mymlbdraft.com Tommy Troy 3B (Stanford) It's been a number of bats mentioned in connection with the Red Sox, and one of the best on the table at this point is Stanford's Tommy Troy. He's bounced around a bit defensively, but he should be able to stick at third base, where he has more than enough bat to profile. If Boston doesn't go with him, it's possible it looks at some prep hitters still around. -Sporting News. Justbaseball.com has the same pick...It is easy to fall in love with Taylor’s sweet swing from the left side, and there’s a decent chance a team ahead of the White Sox could. Should the draft shake out this way, it would be hard to imagine Taylor falling beyond 15. Taylor’s feel to hit is impressive, driving the ball to all fields with a smooth ease along with a great feel for the strike zone. The power presently looks average, but he has decently long levers with some more room for strength within his frame. He should have no issue sticking at third, but could play a solid second base as well.

Cora has led a team that has... used 27 pitchers and saw at least 30 games started lost by injuries to our top 5 SP'ers no fWAR leader in the top 45, and the one at 46 is named Jarren Duran. no fWAR pitching leader in the top 56, and the one at 57 is named Brayan Bello. the 68th best fWAR pitcher (Sale) on the 60 day IL I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. One more thing, many here, including myself, felt our roster needed more quality and not quantity, but this more balanced approach seems to be doing pretty well, especially in light of the fact that our recent rotation has... Sale on the 60 Houck on the IL Whitlock on the IL Paxton was on PAT leave Kluber on the IL (after pen demotion) Pivetta demoted to the pen Crawford seeing sometime on the IL I can't help but chuckle at those hyper critical of Cora. Most who are seem to have also hated the job Bloom did building this roster, yet somehow think Cora should be getting more out of this "crappy team." It literally cracks me up.

It would not surprise me. It would add some extra Bloom-bashing fodder, for sure.

Cora is a clear net plus, IMO. If anyone thinks he's a problem, I'll just say, we have much larger problems than him.

Am I reading this wrongly, or did you misplace a word or two?

I'm happy JD is doing well in LA. I'm glad he did not go to the Yanks, Jays or O's.

True. Maybe the Rays know what tweak is needed, and we don’t.

Well, they were in on Diekman and Littell.

My bad. .790 from opening day to May 19. 1.184 May 20 to June 10 .594 June 11 to July 6. 2.238 last 2 games. .872 for season is damn good. It was .837 on June 6th.

I agree on Duran being deserving of a gamble of playing FT (namely vs all lefties.) My point is more about Duvall and maybe Kike being deserving of playing vs all LHPs, too- and Yoshida, Dugo and Duvall, too. Someone once pointed out, to me, that Yaz was a career .693 batter vs LHPs and was never platooned. Great point, but when you look at those rosters, .693 was better than the other options, and Yaz played plus D. Duvall is a professional hitman. He's slumping, now, but he is way more proven than Duran. I'm not trying to slight Duran. I wish we could find a way to play them all- maybe not so much Kike v LHPs, but he does have an .800+ OPS vs them, career. To me, the odd man out is Duvall. We still have depth issues at middle infield, even with Chang's return and the pending Story return. Story may need to DH, at first. I think we keep Kike for all around depth, and he won't bring back what Duvall might bring back. Also, Refsnyder makes it 5 capable OF'ers and has been one of MLB's best hitters vs LHPs from 2022 to 2023- a way bigger sample size than Duran's. That's one of MLB's best hitters- not just the Sox. What's the "fair" or "right thing" to do with him?

JD's "monster season" was more like a monster April.

...and providing context does not equate to full-fledged support.

Yes, I agreed with that after someone pointed that out, the first time I said we may have failed to have a firesale due to the fear of the massive amounts of crybaby fans in Sox Nation. I cry about crybaby fans, a lot.

Not so fast. We may be buyers at the deadline, and that added $4M could land us a $12M player (who is owed $4M for the last 2 months.) It could be added to what we have to spend, now and land an even bigger fish or two.

I agree that trading Paxton is giving up on 2023, no matter who we trade for in other deals. I do wish we had traded everyone not nailed down, last season, so I can see the reasoning, if someone thinks we have no shot, this year, and maybe we all might feel that way by August 1st. As far as the fans go, I look back at 2022 and how totally happy everyone was when we did not trade away any big stars. I'm not sure any GM can ever make the majority of Sox fans happy, so maybe just doing what you think most helps the team, by balancing the here and now with teh future and extended future is what is best for the team. Imagine, if we had traded Duran and Bello for a good pitcher, last year. Maybe we throw in Casas and get Castillo. Many fans would have been happy. Is that all that should matter? Sox Nation has too many crybaby fans to ever make them happy.

Too many Cora apologists who think he can do now wrong. (Don't ask me to name names.)

Managers make thousands of decisions every season. If I disagree with a few, it doesn't mean I think Cora was wrong. The world is not black and white, to me. there is a lot of gray. In fact, it's mostly gray. If one disagrees with Cora on 5 or 10 things out of thousands, it's entirely possible to think he's still very good or even great. Here is my biggest disagreement: too much resting of players and not synching the days off ve wrong-handed pitchers. It bugs me, but I never think "I am right, and Cora is wrong." I know Cora knows a ton more than me, and may have information that would lead me to agree with the choice he made. I'm not sure I have ever criticized a singular game move by Cora. (I even defended the choice of leaving Pedro in the game, so long ago as having some merit.) If I were manager, we'd have a losing record, and I would not rest players as much. I'm not claiming I'm "right" or anyone is wrong. Having differing opinions need not be reduced to insisting the other guy is wrong for disagreeing with my opinion.